MBNA America 400 - Dodge Qualifying Quotes

Mayfield Wins Second Pole of Season at Dover; Dodge Leads Circuit with 13 Poles in 2004

KASEY KAHNE (No. 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge)

“We were tight-loose, tight-loose through the corners in practice, and we could never figure it out. We made some changes, so it was at least just loose, so that’s better than being both. It was looser on the first lap and on the second lap the tires had built up a little more and it tightened up and got a little faster.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) Wins Pole, second of the season at Dover

“We’ll take it any way we can get it. The second one at Dover is pretty neat. The 2 and 12 fought us hard for it today, but we were able to come back and win the thing. I can’t say enough about this race team. Everybody on this team is awesome, and I love these guys.

“We were in crunch time at Richmond and did what we had to do. We had to make something happen and that’s what we’ve got to do now. Sometimes you’ve got to grab life by the horns. That’s what Dodge is all about, and that’s what we’ve got to do here.

“The track really changed from practice. I wasn’t expecting it to be that different, but it was pretty slick. I guess it was from all the oil-dry that’s been around all day. Our Dodge was still pretty good. We’ve got to come back fighting every week, and that’s what we’re going to do this week. Whether it’s the pole or not, we’re still going to be strong and we’re going to be good here. This is one of our good tracks.

“Richard (Childress) called me a couple of times, and that was very nice of him. We’ll go from there. I think he’s learned a valuable lesson from it. It’s cost us, but what do you do? You’ve got to go on. We’ve got to fight back here.

“The T-shirt says ‘I want you to stay far, far away from me.’ Ya’ll probably know who you is. It’s pretty cool. It’s just a funny little joke. We’re trying to get over last week. It’s bright orange if that tells you anything. I thought we’d have a little fun. I know Robby has had a tough week. That’s behind us, but we thought we’d come here and have a little fun with it anyway.

“The car was great. Our Dodge was really good, but I was surprised how the track had changed. It’s pretty slick out there. The guys made the right changes. We made a couple of air pressure changes just before we went out and they hit it right. We’re not worried about points now. Points is not even in our vocabulary. We’re going to run hard and run up front. That’s all we can do.”

JEFF GREEN (No. 43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge)

“It wasn’t good. We tightened it up and pushed. We’re better than that, but I think we’ll be OK. I think this is a lot better Dodge than we had here in the spring. We’ll know more tomorrow. It feels like it’s got a lot of grip, and that’s a good thing.”

KYLE PETTY (No. 45 Georgia-Pacific/Brawny Dodge)

“We were pretty good in practice, but I got loose off turn two in both laps. You’re supposed to be quicker in qualifying, but I’m usually not, so I’ll take that.”

STERLING MARLIN (No. 40 Coors Light Dodge)

“We got real loose and bottomed out on both laps. It didn’t do that in practice. It bottomed out terrible in one and two. We were pretty good in practice, but we lost a couple of tenths in qualifying.”

JAMIE McMURRAY (No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge)

“We had a really good lap. We got through one and two well. The car was balanced right. It just missed a little bit in three and four. We were a little bit high and to be fast here you need to be right on the bottom. Missed it a little bit down there, but it was probably my fault. It should be a top 10 (ended up 10th). The thing I’ve learned about Cup racing is it’s really irrelevant where you qualify. If you just don’t pit when the leaders do it seems like you can get to the front. If it works for you, you can stay there. This racetrack seems to have a lot of long, green-flag runs and not a lot of cars on the lead lap.”

BRENDAN GAUGHAN (No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Dodge)

“It’s always good when you pick up in practice, and we gained a tenth. It was a little loose in three and four, but we’ll go to work and get rid of that and get ready to race.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge)

“OK is a good way to describe it. I know I didn’t get in an ideal lap. It was a good effort for the ALLTEL Dodge. We’ve got two Dodges on the front row, and that’s a good way to start. I don’t know that Jeremy had a perfect lap, but I know mine wasn’t perfect. I gave up some off turn four, but woulda, shoulda, coulda.”

CASEY MEARS (No. 41 Target Dodge)

“It was way too loose. It was like they pulled a 200-pound left-rear spring out. It was horrible. We were good in practice and probably on the verge of being too good and the track got loose and we were out of control.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge) – Qualified second

“We had a good car in the spring race, and everybody knows what happened there. We’ve got a good starting spot. It’s going to be good for pit selection, track position, all those things, the opportunity to lead a lap and get five points, which could be huge in the chase for the championship. We’ll just see how things go. Hopefully it’s not the same type of events we had in the first race here. Usually Dover is pretty good about having good, long green-flag runs and a lot of good racing and a lot of good racing, side-by-side racing, so we’ll see how that goes.

“You can’t be any different than you are at every other race or every other lap all year. We’ll just go out and do the best job we can, lead a lap, if it’s the last or every other one between. A top-five finish is a realistic goal, and we’re here for the win, obviously.

“After we won the second one here (in 2003), I was really looking forward to coming back. I don’t pick races on the schedule and say we can win here or there. I think our team is capable of winning at every racetrack in one way or the other. There’s no spotlight on Dover.

“The best way to answer that is to say I don’t know who’s been caught with what the last couple of weeks. Obviously gas and fuel mileage is important. As long as the cars carry fuel we’re going to have fuel mileage races. We’ll just see what kind of predicament the teams are in going into the last green-flag run here. I’m not aware of what’s been caught or what hasn’t been caught.

“Short pitting, I don’t think so. Basically, you lose so much time getting on pit road and getting off. On top of pit road speed, you run the risk of going two laps down and not being able to have a shot at the Lucky Dog if they throw a caution, so really, just like most other racetracks, you run until you have to come in or have a flat.

“I wouldn’t use the words ‘absolutely necessary’, but we’re here to win. If we come away with a top five, that’s good. If we don’t, we’ll assess the situation.

“I just think what I can think. I don’t what everybody else is thinking. We have to stay focused as a team. If we do well, everything will take care of itself. If we win the race, then the points take care of themselves. If we finish in the top five, then the points take care of themselves. If we finish 12th, then the points won’t take care of themselves and we’ll be on the edge of moving up. All you can do is just try your hardest, have good pit stops, clean race car at the end of the race. If you finish first, first you’ve got to finish. If we can do all those things, just like all the other teams, we’ll be just fine and we won’t have to worry about what everybody else is thinking about.

“This is probably the toughest race on tires. I think Gordon cut one or blew one here in the first race. I know he was really tight when that happened. I don’t think tire wear is as much an issue as being off with your balance as well as having settings in your car that are harder on your tires than other settings like too much camber or too much air pressure or too little air pressure, those types of things. I don’t think they’re going to wear out. They’ve been pretty good tires.”

JEREMY MAYFIELD (No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge) – Pole winner

“I felt real confident. This is one of my favorite racetracks, and we seem to do kinda good at times. It seems like it’s been a great place for us. We’ve had good runs here in the past and great qualifying runs. I’m very confident coming in here. I felt like we had a shot the last time we were here and got into some trouble. Hopefully this time we’ll stay out of trouble and be there in the end.

“I think it’s a place we knew we were going to be pretty good at, and it’s a place we look forward to coming to. Anytime you look forward to a racetrack where you’ve run good in the past it builds confidence. Here and Darlington and a lot of places coming up we have a lot confidence. This is one of my favorite places as far as one I have confidence in. I think it’s going to be a great race. We’ll see what happens.

“I think it’s very important to start up front any time you can, and that’s definitely going to keep us out of trouble that might occur. Any time you start up front, especially on the pole and get away from the guys, you have a better shot at not getting into a wreck or whatever. That’s all we can hope for and doing the best we can. Last week is over. We’re not going to dwell on it. We haven’t been dwelling on it. We’ve been looking forward to coming to Dover and doing what we did. Now we’ve got to go out and win the race and try to make up the points we got taken away from us last week.

“I think we’re going to have to do that (repeat Richmond performance) every week from here on out to try to rebound from this thing. That’s what this team seems to be really good at. We get knocked down and we get chewed up and spit out and all that stuff, booed off the stage, but we come right back. I feel like that’s why we’re like an underdog type race team. When the going gets tough we feel like we perform our best. When you’ve got a race team like that you’re going to win races and hopefully the championship.

“Obviously he (Robby Gordon) wasn’t in too desperate of a search for me. It might have been the shirt I had on, too. I want ya’ll to see my shirt. It says, ‘I want you to stay far, far away from me.’ This is a shirt I found, and I’m wearing it today. What’s cool is that Richard Childress called Monday morning and left me a message. He apologized and said he was very sorry. I took that as a compliment coming from Richard. About Wednesday, he called me back and left another message saying the same thing. I tried to get hold of him. We’ve been playing phone tag, but that’s classy of Childress to do that. He’s got hold of me twice, and we’ve been playing phone tag and all of that, but I haven’t talked to Robby. I thought that was pretty neat for Richard to do that. I hate it he had to do that and be in that situation, but he did a pretty good job. Richard didn’t seem to have any problems getting ahold of anybody.

“I’m not joking. I did not have it (T-shirt) made. My wife was looking on the internet and we were trying to have a cool shirt to have some fun this weekend, not for any particular reason or anything. There happened to be a real bright orange shirt that we found that said, ‘I want you to stay far, far away from me.’ I thought it would be cool to have that just for the heck of it.

“It’s over. What are you going to do about it? There’s nothing we could do about it. I could get mad and then we probably wouldn’t have sat on the pole today if we had dwelled on that this week. I hate it for Childress and car owners. Ray is the ultimate one that pays the price Robby don’t realize how many families and team members and companies and sponsors it affects. I think he’s learned a valuable lesson.”